Tarsus
An Ancient City Continuously Inhabited For Millennia; Birthplace Of Saint Paul, The Meeting Place Of Antony And Cleopatra In 41 BC, With A Preserved Stretch Of Roman Road · Tarsus, Mersin
Tarsus has been lived in for something like six thousand years, and the consequence is that almost all of it is under the modern city: what a visitor gets is a handful of sites scattered through working streets rather than a ruin field to walk round. They are worth finding. Saint Paul was born here and described himself as a citizen of no mean city; a well in a courtyard is shown as his family's, and pilgrims draw water from it. Antony met Cleopatra here in 41 BC when she came up the river on a barge, and a Roman gate on the edge of the old town carries her name for it. A stretch of the Roman road was uncovered in the 1990s and lies several metres below today's pavement, black basalt and rutted. Out of town the Berdan river drops over a broad waterfall lined with restaurants, which is where Tarsus actually spends its evenings and is the pleasant end of a day spent driving between small enclosures.
Cleopatra Kapisi ve Sent Paul Kuyusu, Tarsus, Mersin, Tarsus, Mersin, Turkiye
The city is open at all hours; St Paul's Well and its enclosure, the museum and the Roman road site keep daytime hours with small charges. St Paul's Church is a museum and its opening has varied, with services held by permission rather than regularly. The waterfall and its restaurants run year round. Summer here is extremely hot.